But Moscow economist Vladislav
Inozemtsev says that the motivating force behind these protests is despair
about the current situation and fears about the future rather than the hope
that stood behind the wave of protests which swept through Russia in 2011-2012
(rbc.ru/opinions/politics/10/07/2017/596367469a7947faa6a2b604).

“Six years ago,” he writes, “’the
multi-polarity’ of the opposition pushed the authorities to make concessions.
Today, however, the protest is monopolized and the chance of achieving any
concessions is minimal.”

That is because “the events of 2011
were ‘a protest of hope’” which “arose under conditions when positive trends
were sharply being replaced by the reverse. This anger had a political quality,
a clearly recognized cause and object, and almost didn’t depend on the economic
situation.”

According to Inozemtsev, economic
growth in that year was 4.3 percent. Average pay had reached a record 800US
dollars a month. And thus “the decision of Vladimir Putin to
become president again and the obvious violations in the Duma elections drew
into the streets thousands of people and the leaders of all opposition forces.”

“The
slogans were clear: the power here is ‘we’ and we don’t want Putin anymore.”
Everyone was united on that.Such
protests were hardly unique. They happened in Ukraine in 2004 and again in 2013
because “when a dream arises with people an dit seems that they can achieve
something, protest movements can be very effective.”

But
the anger of 2017 looks very different, Inozemtsev says.It is “’the protest of despair’ – the chances
for changing the direction of the movement do not exist, nor are there broad
forces which would want it.”Pay has
fallen, relations with the West have deteriorated, and society is tired of the
burdens of conflict.

The
case of protests against tearing down the khrushchoby
in Moscow shows this: the powers that be can make a few promises to make
concessions and that has turned out to be “sufficient” for the protests to fade
away to nothing. Protests of despair “can be very effective” in societies with
well-developed horizontal structures: Russia isn’t one of these.

But
this is only one of the distinctions between the demonstrations of 2011 and
those of the present day, the Moscow commentator says. Among them are the
following:

“Monopolization of protest.”In 2011, many people
came in to the streets and many leaders did to. But “today, the protest
movement to a large degree has been the result of the activity of Aleksey
Navalny and his comrades. In essence, this is a one-man play and is considered
as such by the majority of participants of earlier protests.” In 2011, those
who took part in the protests subordinated their differences to a common goal;
now, that isn’t possible because the demonstrations are based on slogans rather
than on a plan of action and there is an all too obvious willingness to
compromise “for the sake of popularity.”

“The Composition of Those Taking
Part.” There are
more young people in demonstrations now because they have nothing to lose while
older people do.The special feature of
the protesters of 2011 was that they consisted of people who “did not want to
lose what they had achieved” and were thus far more motivated than are
participants now. That means that the current demonstrations are far less
likely to grow than were those in 2011.

“Likes instead of Actions.” The protests six years ago relied
on the more conventional media and thus gained access to the middle class and
the elite. The protsts now have bed on “the Internet, YouTube, information
channels, posts and clips.”That entails
“a significant danger” because “the monologue of the computer replaces
solidarity; likes and posts replace action.”

“The Reaction of Higher Ups.”In 2011, the elite was split and reacted to what the people in the
streets were saying.“Now the Kremlin
circle is united and there is no ‘protest’ between ‘liberals’ and ‘siloviki.’”The powers that be are ready to crush any
protest that seems to them to be threatening.

As a result, Inozemtsev says, these two kinds of protests
have different outcomes: “the first can bring the protesters to victory, but
the second can’t.However, the consequences
of defeat both in the first and in the second are similar: the dissatisfied
part of society is demoralized and seeks individual strategies to get out it.”

In the current context, this means that Russia’s future will
feature not “a rapid revolution but a gradual degradation of power” and that
campaigns about corruption or improving the state apparatus will “only prolong
this process.Thus, Russians should be
looking “beyond the horizon of the Putin era in the mid-2020s” to think about
what they should be doing.

And if they do this, Inozemtsev says, they will see that the
demonstrators of 2011 will be more useful than those engaged in protest now.